DeFi asset manager Arch announces $5M seed round

Arch, a Chilean asset manager of decentralized finance, closed a $5M seed round co-led by Digital Currency Group and Upload Ventures. Other investors that participated were Ripio Ventures, TechStars, Soma Capital and Genesis Block Ventures.

Arch wants to be the BlackRock of Web3. The startup makes crypto ETFs (Exchange-traded funds) accessible to beginner investors:

“What Arch offers is a solution that is interesting because it’s bringing in something that is complex … [and] making it easy for everyone to do it,” said Andrés Fleischer, managing partner at Ripio Ventures.

The platform will offer two-index tokens, the goal is to not be exposed to a single currency:

Arch blockchain token: tracks the world’s largest blockchains.
Arch Ethereum Web3 token: tracks native tokens of major protocols like Chainlink and Uniswap.

According to Christopher Storaker, cofounder and CEO of Arch:

“What we are looking for is to make passive investment possible in this type of digital assets that exist in crypto and Web3. In that sense, we are quite hung up on what exists in the traditional world, for example with Fintual one can be exposed to a fund that has several of these assets to diversify. We do the same but for the crypto world.”

The new funds will be used by Arch to tokenize a wider suite of DeFi indices and to develop the platform into a decentralized asset management protocol.